A life corrected

A life corrected

Friday 18 July 2003 19.04 EDT
First published on Friday 18 July 2003 19.04 EDT

· In a new issue of Cahiers Georges Perec (No 7), entitled Antibiotiques, friends and relatives of the French writer take on David Bellos's 800-page biography Georges Perec: A Life in Words (Harvill, 1993). While they admit it is a massive achievement, in the spirit of Perec himself they meticulously list various "inexactitudes", many of them minuscule points of detail.

Also this year, two huge volumes of interviews with Perec appeared (Entretiens et conférences I et II, Editions Joseph K) and his Penser/classer (1985) was reissued by Seuil. As well as "Notes Concerning the Objects that are on my Work-table" and "On the Difficulty of Imagining an Ideal City", Penser/classer includes "Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books". Perec reluctantly concludes that no way is satisfactory by itself. "Meanwhile, I move them from one room to another, one shelf to another, one pile to another, and may spend three hours looking for a book without finding it, but sometimes having the satisfaction of coming upon six or seven others which serve my purpose just as well."

· This month Human Rights Watch will announce Hellman/Hammett grants totalling $170,000 for a diverse group of writers in recognition of their courage in the face of political persecution. The awards began in 1989 in honour of the playwright Lillian Hellman and her companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. And so, as an antidote to all those summer reading lists, here are some of the recipients:

The Chinese poet, novelist and screenwriter Liao Yiwu was first arrested in 1990 while working on a film about the government's persecution of people involved in the June 4th Movement. He has been confined to numerous detention centres and prisons. In September 1998 he was arrested for compiling The Underground Poems of the Seventies in China and in January 2001 the publisher of his most recent book, Voice From the Lowest Rung of Society, was ordered to recall all copies from bookshops. He was detained again last year after posting his work on the internet.

Iranian poet and essayist Ismail Khoi was one of the first university lecturers to be suspended after the Islamic revolution. The Iranian government has banned his books and prohibited any mention of his name in the media.

Nigerian poet and novelist Chris Abani was arrested in 1985 and spent six months in prison when it was suggested the plots of his novels were coded plans to overthrow the government. In 1987 he was tortured and imprisoned for a year. He formed a theatre group to write and perform anti-government sketches but his play Song of the Broken Flute (1990) - monologues against government corruption - landed him back in prison on treason charges. Released after 18 months, he fled to Britain after several attempts on his life. With the publication of his prison memoir in 1997 the Nigerian government applied to have him extradited to stand trial for treason again. In 1999, when his next-door neighbour (the only other Nigerian in the building) was killed, Abani left the UK for America. IP